Show HN: Cookie Recipe Generator
thecookie.website
thecookie.website
I know the other commenters are giving you plenty of TODOs, but what I think could make this shine: explanations (like a ? by each dial) that give some details by the property (what is smooth vs craggy?) and how extreme the spectrum goes (is extremely soft just warmed cookie dough?). Photo examples could help too!
Also, generating a deterministic name based on the inputs could help people share or differentiate recipes, more so than by unlabeled values.
Fun project, good job.
Eg you could have the nice deterministic name like you say, but also something like “with high flour to sugar ratio for softness” or whatever the actual truth of the matter is
Customize exactly how you want your cookies to turn out and it will generate the perfect recipe for your perfect cookie. Would really like everyone's feedback!
https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best...
If the traffic proves stable, I'd consider it. Think of it as a way to recommend brands you like
Some errors in the testing framework were identified and will be rectified in subsequent test suite runs
One would probably learn a lot about cookie baking by dialing up variations and trying them each out.
BTW: you get really fun results when trying to make 1 cookie. I'm not sure I have a teaspoon small enough for that.
The real problem with testing a single cookie is creaming a tiny amount of sugar and butter. Even if your ratios are accurate the preparation will be somewhat different and texture will be affected. But small batch testing is the way to go to dial in ingredients for ideal cost and flavour.
Just think about how annoying measuring a cup of peanut butter is, scraping it out of the measuring cup, washing the cup.. vs just adding spoonfuls of peanut butter to a mixing bowl.
You can still bake just fine with measuring spoons and cups but you’ll be more consistent and better with the scale.
They are required for experiments. I like to add a small amount of baking soda into my banana bread for a nicer crust but if you add too much, think 0.X grams too much, then the banana bread could begin to have a vaguely pretzel-like taste.
Just buy one.
Also - I would so like this site for brownies :-)
https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best...
- might be best to include the C as units for temp
- somehow allow scaling recipe to whatever my eggs actually weigh, (I know I can estimate manually bumping the output up and down, but it'd be nice to do exact calculations)
- generate cookie previews :P
Recipes written by experienced cooks often parallelize 2-3 tasks. For example, you can preheat the oven while boiling the pasta while you're making the sauce. This not only saves time but is actually essential to the recipe. If you try to execute all three tasks in serial, either the pasta or the sauce will be in a less than ideal condition.
Weights and lengths in metric, volumes and temperatures in imperial (or US customary, I can't tell which).
And time in Babylonian.
Edit: Actually I can't tell if temperature is F or C.
I'm going to try baking these tomorrow, would be cool if cup-measiremrnts mattered more than how many cookies come out. That way I don't have to do all the calculation and figure out the exact number of cookies Id need to get nice rounded numbers.
But 160 is way low if it's F, so ????
I think the creator needs to step in and let us know LOL
A metric teaspoon is 5ml and a metric tablespoon is 15ml. They're perfectly acceptable units, not to mention convenient. Would you rather use 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda or measure 2.5 grams on a kitchen scale? I live in a fully metric country but whenever I need to use a recipe written in grams, I immediately convert them to ts/TS/cups and never look at the gram figure again.
Besides, it's not easy to convert from grams to spoons on the fly because different ingredients have different densities, and the density of powdered material is different from that of a solid block. The same problem arises when converting spoons to grams. The worst is when you encounter a recipe that has been converted from spoons to grams (or vice versa) using the wrong densities. It's like encoding an image in JPEG. Every conversion reduces the precision of the numbers.
that's even worse. if i need specialized equipment to get the right measurements then where is the advantage? with metric units, a scale and a jar with markers for volume is all that i ever need to do all measurements in the kitchen.
what's more, both the scale and the jar can handle imperial units as well.
The worst is when you encounter a recipe that has been converted from spoons to grams (or vice versa) using the wrong densities
if the measurement is done at a specific density, and i redo the same measurement at a different density then it's going to be wrong no matter what. but if that is a problem, then volume is the wrong measurement to begin with.
this isn't even about metric vs imperial, because the same problem applies if the spoon is converted to imperial weight.
spoons need to be converted to mililiters or fluid ounces to avoid that problem.
this is not an argument to keep using spoons as units.
(it's rather wierd. it does go up in 0.1g steps after 0.3g, but if i add something heavier and reset to 0, i have to add more than 0.3g again before it shows a change.)
No, measuring teaspoons and tablespoons aren't usually much larger than tea/tablespoons for use at the table.
They typically have shorter but wider handles and different shapes (often semispherical, but there are others).
I'll still convert for other recipies, water being the easiest to convert as 1mL should be 1g.
The grams for everything is a habit I've picked up from reading a lot of modernist recipes.
Not every ingredient has a density of water, so these aren't necessarily the same.
As it happens, baking soda has a density of 2.2g/cm^3. But the powdered form contains lots of air between the granules, so the actual density comes down to somewhere just above the density of water. Using 3g instead of 2.5g in a recipe, though, will yield very different results.
https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best...
https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best...
UX wise, it would be far easier to understand if the other sliders responded instantly so that I could see as I drag one slider how much it impacts the others, without having to release the mouse at each step to find this out.
https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best...
In the US we like to market things based on what they don't contain (unsalted butter, unsmoked provolone, etc), so glucose syrup is sold as as "0g High Fructose Corn Syrup, aka light corn syrup with _real_ vanilla":
Also, this website would suit GDPR compliance perfectly. You need a popup with one option:
"I'm okay with cookies!"
For example, Stripe is loaded early on and uses tracking cookies, which are not necessary until a visitor decides to donate.
While true and I agree, Stripe argues that their anti-fraud system is helped if you load the JS code as early as possible, so assuming they are doing bunch of tracking in order to identify fraud when they finally go to the payment screen.